Tool Predicts Fatal Construction Mishaps

The Construction Industry Institute is touting a new tool for predicting, and reducing the risk of, deadly accidents in the construction industry.

CII’s Research Team 321, led by Gregg Slintak, of Consolidated Edison Company of New York, announced earlier this month the results of its look into using precursor analysis in order to predict what it calls high-impact events—fatal accidents and “high energy” near-misses.

Slintak and a team of panelists discussed the methodology at the Institute’s annual meeting in early August.

Injuries Down, Fatalities Up

At the root of the question, the Engineering News-Record reports, is that, while improved practices have cut the rate of on-the-job injuries in recent years, fatalities have in fact become more common.

CII's new tool uses precursor analysis in order to predict what it calls high-impact events—fatal accidents and “high energy” near-misses.

The ENR reports that Slintak and his team underlined 16 common factors that tend to go before a high-impact incident. They center around things like poor planning, operating in a rush, and failing to keep workers aware of proper procedures.

The Tool

The research team produced a precursor analysis tool that is available to CII members; the organization calls it “the construction industry’s first valid and reliable method for identifying leading conditions that predict [high-impact, low-frequency] events.”

The team holds that finding predictive factors is “far more difficult than conducting a retrospective root-cause analysis,” and that “mathematical models provide a valid, reliable and objective method for predicting the occurrence of HILF events.”